Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, no single issue has preoccupied the Iranian leadership as much as the United States, both in quality and quantity. Iran’s conversation about the United States has been both intensive and extensive, engaging various administrations, political factions, leaders and prominent elites. This paper is a systematic attempt to make sense out of this conversation. It identifies four key foundational pillars into which this extensive and diverse conversation can be organized. The paper investigates the genealogy and the evolution of each pillar. All four images of the United States are, in the Iranian narrative, connected to discussions of concrete policy issues that have engaged the two countries, and act individually and collectively as a prism through which US attitudes towards Iran and the Iranian response to it have been depicted and articulated in the public narrative.